


Crossing Thresholds

by beautlilies



Category: Twilight Series - All Media Types, Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: F/M, ahahahahhahahahahah, and feelings, and miriam, anna you too, lilia i'm waiting for my fic too i did not forget, no regrets, shoutout to lexie, the volturi jalice rewrite, with porn, yall know what i want in exchange
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:42:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27989415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beautlilies/pseuds/beautlilies
Summary: Volturi!Jalice AU. But make it set after the Breaking Dawn battle.
Relationships: Alice Cullen/Jasper Hale
Comments: 3
Kudos: 14





	Crossing Thresholds

There is rarely an instance where he is an exception. 

The hand of time has always been close, an ally to an eternity of battle. A useful acquaintance, the most resourceful of his many intricate ideas to eradicate old and new alike. He counts on the sayings to ring true. For history to repeat itself each time a new empire begins to flourish, when the borders of territory were readjusting without his consent or his say or his influence. It has never failed him, never left him to use brute force as a last resort with no warning, logic warning him that there is no escape and that death is imminent. Time is his friend and he welcomes it with open arms.

It never applies to him - except, it always has. Has always brought him back to the starting point of all his progress. A taunt or a reminder, he will never understand. So similar it makes him uncomfortable, raises the hairs on his arm, the back of his neck. Except, it’s not. Not really. Things are exactly the same but completely different. A woman slight of stature, dark hair and warm eyes, stands with his name on her lips and the sun sparkling on her skin. Another smaller than most, dark hair as wild and as loud as her excitement, warm eyes and his name on her lips and the sun sparkling on her skin as she introduces herself in an empty diner in Philadelphia. 

This time is not the exception. Jasper is a fool to hope so.

She’s tending to him. Awkwardly trying to wrap his torso in bandages, trying to keep her skin from accidentally brushing against his own. He’s struggling to remain still, struggling to keep his mind from running rampant about the millions of things Alice should be doing, the hundreds of thousands of things that she can experience with someone that is not him, in a life that is not tied to him or to this glorified monarchy of power-hungry individuals that know no bounds.

Except it’s not like the first time. Except it’s not him that cannot handle the touch of someone else against his own skin. Except it’s not his past that has come to haunt them. But she’s still tending to him, still balancing her frame on the bathroom sink to try and even out their heights just a bit more. But he’s still hurt, his chest littered in new scars, the skin shredded from nails and teeth and claws of shape shifting teenage boys. But she’s still so close to sobbing, so close to confronting an existence without him by her side, stroking her hair, toying with the ends of each wild strand of ink black hair. Laughing at her ramblings, kissing away her misgivings. 

It’s nothing like the first time because they are nothing like the people hiding in an old hotel in Alberta in 1948. Everything has changed since then and now, the first day of a new year. So close to a total of sixty years together, so close to bringing him just a bit closer. Everything has changed since then and now and Jasper can’t help but think that this is something close to healing, to moving forward and closing every bridge and every gap between that still exists.

But it’s exactly like that first time all those years ago. Steam curls the end of his hair, fogs the mirror behind her as she pulls her lip between her teeth in concentration. Their clothes stick to their bodies, beads along his hairline as he tries so hard to allow her the space she needs to come to terms. It’s like that first time because he is in front of her and her knees are so close to pressing against the side of his body, but with something deeper now, a possessiveness born out of guilt and fear. She belongs to no one but herself but she is still rattled and shaken from the battle and is trying so hard to not confront everything she thought she knew. But he is hers. He has always been hers. Even when he didn’t know it.

“Alice,” he whispers when she finishes. Sits back to assess the methodical and clean way she has placed each bandage in hopes that it won’t scar as badly, that it won’t itch him and drive him insane as it tries to heal over faded white lines. She looks at him then, and he can feel just how close she is to breaking in his arms. He knows she blames herself, knows that she’s counting each death and adding it to her own personal tally. Knows that she’s remembering the decades she spent with the Cullens, their darling daughter who fed on deer and attended high school until it became apparent that their acceptance of Jasper, battle-scarred and traumatized and still in the heart of the most brutal southern war, will never be something that would happen, that they would rather her live in misery than trust in her visions the way they so often did. “Alice.”

He knows she remembers each time Carlisle would place a hand on her shoulder in fatherly affection. Knows that she is living through each memory of teasing Edward and shopping with Rosalie and rough housing with Emmett. Picking out prints with Esme and studying with Carlisle. He knows that each memory hurts so much more now, knows that there is such a deep wound that has been reopened not only by the readily accepted marriage of Edward to his human bride, but of their child and the upheaval it has brought to their life that they refused Alice to bring all those years ago.

And he knows that she knows that it’s different. Knows that so much has happened to them just as much as it happened to her. But she loved them - and if she’s being honest, she will always have love for them, for Carlisle, her creator as much as her father, for the family they nurtured and created out of horrific situations, that she has never truly stopped loving them. But she loved them and so many of them are  _ gone  _ -

They’re dead. Carlisle. Rosalie. Edward’s new wife. Edward himself. All of their friends. Cousins.

“Alice, you can’t blame yourself.”

She nods her head but it’s an empty action. Hollow acceptance of his reminder because she’s grieving and still grateful that it was  _ them  _ who died and not him. That she gets to hear the sound of his voice for the rest of eternity, that she will never have to know a life where his touch is nothing but a memory and the smell of his clothes causes an acute pain that nothing but death can soothe. She hates how much she will never change the outcome of this battle, hates that she had to kill her former family to keep her beloved safe. Hates how she would do it over and over and over again.

It’s so much like that first time because she’s aching at having coming so close to having lost him. It’s so much like that time in Alberta when Carlisle had tried to encourage her to come back, Maria unknowingly not too far away and hoping to persuade Jasper to do just the same. It’s so much like that first time because he was mauled trying to protect her. So much like that first time where she decided that she can never part with him, that she would do anything to save him just as he would her. So much like the first time where she chose to ignore the human side of her and save him - save them  _ both _ .

A minute passes. A second and then a third. The humidity begins to dissipate. Alice hangs her head and she tries to steady her breathing, level out the current of her emotional turmoil. And then she raises her head and looks him in the eye, her own wide and vulnerable and he has to restrain himself from pulling her into his arms. She’s an emotional wreck and he knows that she cannot handle so much stimulation from the outside world, that he is too influencing and too much of a distraction, that his touch sends her spiraling and she physically cannot handle it. 

“I killed them, Jasper.”

“You didn’t.”

“I took Irina’s  _ head off _ .”

“We were in the middle of a battle,” he tries to emphasize it. Tries to get her to see that there is no right or wrong in life or death situations. “Alice, we were in the middle of a battle and you would have  _ died  _ if you hadn’t.”

And he knows when that first, broken sob slips past her lips that she has always held onto the naive hope that they will one day accept her back into their family, welcome Jasper with open arms and delight in learning about him and the nuances of their relationship. Hoped that she would be able to negotiate something with Aro to free them from this life, if only for a few months of the year. And he had hoped with her, had tried to find a way to give her this impossibility.

It’s all gone now. Any chance, any sliver of an idea that she can find peace and live with the family she has longed for for so long is gone. Burned in the ashes of her cousin's head. In her sister's decapitated body and her father’s head thrown to the side as if it was an old toy. It’s gone and she  _ hurts _ .

“I don’t know where to go from here,” she says at last, her voice small and scratchy. “I don’t know, Jasper.”

“You don’t need to know,” he reminds her, and his fingers twitch in habit, trying desperately to stroke her cheek as delicately as she deserves. “You don’t need to. I’ll lead us, my love. I’ll lead us, Alice. You don’t have to.”

She reaches for him, then. Hand shaking and he can’t help but close the gap for her, taking her hand in his own, bringing it to his lips and pressing soft kisses to each knuckle. He can feel how badly she needs to cry, how badly she needs him to hold her as she tries to beg for forgiveness. Tries to negotiate a way to bring back her loved ones, to have Jasper remain by her side for eternity and joke with Emmett and theorize with Rosalie and bicker with Edward. He steps closer to her and her legs wrap around his waist without thought, her arms around his neck as she lets out each broken sob, dry and scratchy and a knife to his heart. 

There’s nothing for him to say, nothing he can that can ease her hurt and her anger and every irrational thought that ricochettes in her mind. He holds her as tight as he can, tries to let her know that he loves her and that none of this will change that. Tries to show her that no one blames her and that she is simply a survivor caught between two-halves of herself. It won’t be enough but it’s all he can give her.

Her voice is hoarse, a croak. So far from her former melody. “Jasper, I need -”

And he knows exactly what she needs when her voice trails off and her fingers toy with the button of his jeans. He’s quick to ask if she’s sure and just as quick to press his lips to hers. There to help her push down the fabric of his jeans, shake it off his legs as it sticks in uncomfortable places, his skin still damp from the shower and the humidity trapped in the bathroom. His fingers are quick to skim over her own shirt, to help her out of soft pants and cotton underwear. She’s easy to balance on porcelain sinks, has spent enough time with her in various positions in this exact bathroom to know how to move and what feels best and keeps the sink still attached to the wall.

Still, he takes his time. Just like the first time he kissed her neck back in Alberta and shattered into a million pieces. Kisses the soft skin of her neck, just under her jaw, behind her ear, the hollow of her throat. Lightly scrapes his teeth along the length of it. Mouths his breathless adoration and unconditional love for her in the valley of her breasts, reiterates and punctuates each statement with the way he teases her breasts, with the way his fingers lightly dance between her legs, so close to where she wants him but still so far. He whispers her name as he kisses his way down, a breathless and guttural moan when she slips her hand between them and wraps her hand around him, lightly stroking and just as teasing.

He can’t taste her. Not in the way he really wants to, not without moving from this position and trying desperately to cross the threshold to make it to his bedroom without being seen. He contemplates taking that chance, even though he knows that Aro is not far and can hear Caius’ thundering footsteps as he tries to grapple with their own devastating loss, tries to find a way to restore order and balance to what he considers the rightful hierarchy. Jane is somewhere, probably waiting to corner Alice, to assault her with her words and try to incapacitate her to get revenge for the death of her twin. But Alice shakes her head, whispers that she doesn’t want that against his lips and moves his fingers right where she needs him, warm and wet and already so willing.

When he slips a finger inside, parting dark curls and curving his finger just the way she likes, his palm brushing against her clit, she stutters out a broken sigh of his name and her head falls back against the mirror. She’s gorgeous like this, willing and uninhibited, raw in her need for him and for a release. She’s loud and needy, his name a prayer on pretty pink lips that he’s kissed swollen, a hand tangled in his hair and the other gripping onto the porcelain beneath her. He can’t help himself but slip another finger inside of her, can’t stop himself from swallowing her moans and moving his fingers this way and that until she’s slipping into her release of tensing muscles and uncontrollable gasps as she tries hard not to crush the porcelain into nothing more than dust.

He gives her a minute, two, before she comes back to the present. Her eyes slow to open and her smile even slower to unfurl, the slightest bit regretful and still dazed. He knows that she still feels like he never gets enough reciprocation, not physically, knows that she will always take the opportunity to work her lips over him and brace her hands on his thighs as she tries to fight against the ridiculous juxtapositions of their height and take him all in. But he tries to remind her that he doesn’t really need it, not when he gets off on the sounds she makes and how her nails digging into his skin feels or the current she sends him when she’s unable to form a coherent thought, his name in broken syllables and unintelligible pet names the only thing that slips past her lips. He loves to feel her lips around him, feel the way she drools and gags and coughs around him, but this is about her and he’s more than okay with it.

She whispers a plea, tries to tell him what she needs with the pitiful rise of her hips. Her legs pull him closer, his thighs against the cold porcelain and suddenly he’s right where she needs him, right where his instincts are telling him that he needs to stay buried inside for the next milenia. But he still wants to make sure, still wants to check in to make sure this is exactly what she needs of him now. To remind her that she’s in control, that he is ready to pull away and give her the space she needs if that is what she wants. But Alice, impatient and always certain knows exactly what she wants, exactly what she needs, and she doesn’t mask her annoyance, pouts and whines and wiggles against him until he slips inside, ever so slowly because he’s still ridiculously tall and big and she’s ridiculously short and tiny, moving slowly until there’s nowhere for him to go but rock his hips just the slightest bit back and the slightest bit forward until she’s moaning and begging for more, harder, faster.

He’s trying to keep a steady pace, trying to keep the rhythm of his hips even so she won’t lose control as fast, so he won’t follow her into the tidal wave of suffocating pleasure and the dual sensations that threaten to drown him after all. But she’s keening, so ready and willing and begging for him to move faster, shifting her hips and moaning loudly in his ear when he pins her legs back, rocks his hips with a ferocious intensity that has her clawing at his shoulders, arching her back and begging for something that she can sense is  _ right there  _ -

And when he snaps his hips just so, his thumb brushing against her clit ever so gently, she falls off that cliff with a broken cry of his name and a sloppy kiss on his lips. He’s not too far behind her, not when she’s still rolling her hips and whispering in his ear just how good he feels, how she loves the way it feel when his hand wraps around her throat or his fingers tug on her nipples or how her name sounds falling from his lips, and he can’t help himself, can’t stop himself from losing control and following her into that state of bliss and uncontrollable jerks, broken gasps and holding her close so he can bury his head in the crook of her neck.

Alice is the first to pull away. She kisses him sweetly, cupping his face in her hands as he tries to regain his composure, trying to ground himself in the present but it’s so difficult for him to do so when she’s slipping her tongue past his lips and breathing so deeply, her chest brushing against his. She pulls away before he loses himself in that state, before she decides to throw caution to the wind and take him in the shower and go down on him just as he likes, just as he deserves.

“Thank you,” she murmurs against his lips. 

“I’m always going to be here for you, Alice. You lead sometimes. I lead sometimes.”

“I know. I love you.”

“I love you.”


End file.
